Many are saying of me, "God will not deliver him." But you are a shield around me, O Lord; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.Psalm 3:2-3

We receive messages about ourselves from the important people in our lives. We internalize these messages and carry them with us, repeating them to ourselves as if they were gospel truth. When the messages are shaming messages then the internal chorus chants "You are not lovable. You are beyond repair. Even God cannot help you."

This chorus is a chorus of lies. The psalmist rejects these lies. And we need to begin to reject these lies as well.

The Lord is a "shield around me", the psalmist says. A shield protects. It comes between the blows of an enemy and a person's vulnerable places. Most shields are small and can only protect a limited area from attack. But the shield which the Lord provides completely surrounds us. We can let this shield protect us from these attacking messages.

The psalmist also says that the Lord "bestows glory on me and lifts up my head". Heavy burdens of shame, neglect and abuse have bowed our heads. The Lord listens, pays attention and cares about us. God's love counters the voices of our internal shame-chorus so that we can lift our heads. God replaces our shame with glory. It is a picture of a ragged, neglected child whose head is bowed and shoulders are bent. A king sees the child and goes to him. The king gently lifts the child's chin until his eyes meet his own smiling eyes. He asks the child to come home and live as royalty with him. The child is loved, honored, protected. You are the child. God lifts your head and bestows glory.

God help me to stop listening to lies about you.Help me to stop listening to lies about me.Be a shield around me.Bestow glory.Lift up my head.Amen.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.Psalm 139:14

We are God's creation. God made us. And what God makes is wonderful.

This may sound pretty obvious, but we probably need to remind ourselves that it is not everything-and-everybody-except-me that is wonderfully made. It is everything-and-everybody-including-me that is fearfully and wonderfully made by God.

When we have learned to see ourselves as people without value, when we have internalized contempt as the basis for our personal identity, it is difficult to see ourselves as one of God's wonderful works.

But you are one of God's wonderful works. You are precious to God. You are a unique, irreplaceable expression of God's creative love.

It is good to praise God for making us. It is good to see ourselves as a reason for thanksgiving and awe. God made our minds, our emotions, our needs, our bodies, our creativity, our longings, our hopes. God is a marvelous creator who made us wonderfully.

You are one of God's wonderful works. You can praise God that he made you wonderfully.

Thank you, Creator God, that you made me. and that all that you make is wonderfulincluding me. Amen

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they?Matthew 6:26

Many of us learn early in life that we need to earn our sense of value. For some, value was earned by entertaining people with our clowning acts. For others, value came from taking care of everyone else. And for others, value was derived from achieving success of some kind. But often there is no way to entertain enough, take care enough or achieve enough to meet our needs for approval. No matter how compulsively we entertain, or care or work, we still are not able to feel valued. These substitutes do not meet the deepest longings of our heart. In addition we run the risk of becoming compulsively attached to these substitutes because we fear that the sense of value which they offer is our only hope of finding peace.

The longing to experience ourselves as valued is a fundamental human need. The need is really a need to be heard, seen, enjoyed and loved by others for who we are rather than for what we do. No amount of earned approval can meet this need. We long to know that we have value simply because we exist. This kind of value cannot be earned, it must be received as a gift.

Jesus says to us "you are valuable. Simply because you are, you are valuable". The birds of the air are God's creatures. God sees them and cares for them. God made them and God enjoys them. They are valuable. You, too, are God's creation, made and known by God. God sees you and cares for you. You are of great value.

As we grow in our awareness that our true value is a gift already given to us by God, we can begin to let go of the tight hold we have on our substitute strategies for achieving worth.

Father, you know how attached I have become to earning my sense of value.But, I can never seem to work hard enough.Thank you, Creator God, for valuing the birds of the air.Thank you, Creator God, for valuing me.Help me to receive this good gift from you. Help me to see myself as valuable in your eyes.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.Isaiah 43:1

Abandoned. Neglected. Alone.

Many of us share these painful struggles. Unfortunately, many of us have struggled with them from very early in life. People from dysfunctional families often feel that they were never acceptable to their parents. Many struggle with the feeling that they can never be good enough to receive attention. If reinforced by rejection or abandonment from friends, colleagues, or other significant people in our lives, we can easily conclude that we don't really 'belong' at all.

Humans have a deep longing to belong, to be emotionally bonded with others. Social isolation can be very painful to us. But social isolation may have felt like the only option open to us as children. Attempts at closeness may have meant experiencing control, abuse, rejection or loss. We may have pulled away to protect ourselves, even though it left us lonely and afraid.God comes to our lonely, anxious hearts and whispers our name. God says "I see both the fear you have of closeness and the deep longing you have to belong. I have come to comfort you and to respond to your need. I have been seeking relationship with you. You belong. You belong to me. You are my child."

It may frighten us - this invitation to belong to God - even though we long for it. It may frighten us because we expect pain and disappointment, over-control and rejection. But gradually, as we continue the healing process, we can allow God to meet this deep need. We can allow ourselves to belong more and more to God.

Help me, God, to allow myself to belong to you. Thank you for calling me by name. Thank you for saying 'you are mine'.I want to belong to you, God.Help me to heal, Great Physician,So that I can accept my place in your family. Take away my fear, Father, give me the courage to belong to you.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.Ephesians 2:10

God is a very capable craftsman. God's workmanship is of the highest quality. We are God's workmanship. We are the art of a competent Creator.

Notice in this text that our creation 'in Christ Jesus' means that we are competent as well. We are like our Creator in that we have been created 'to do good works'. God who is capable of good works made us to be capable of doing good works as well.

This is quite a contrast to 'you can't do anything right'. In dysfunctional families and institutions people learn to doubt their competence. This doubt leads many people to work harder and harder to demonstrate their abilities. In dysfunctional systems, however, no matter how hard we try, we can't try hard enough. We learn that our problem is not that we are human and occasionally make mistakes but that we are incompetent people. We learn that we are flawed in a most basic way. No matter how compulsively we try, we can't ever get it right.

This text is an affirmation of our competence, of our importance in God's plans. God affirms us by saying "there are good things for you to do, and I believe you can do them". Notice that the text does not say that we need to do good works to earn God's love or to win God's approval or that we have to do the work perfectly or compulsively. What is does say is that God sees each of us as capable of good works. God invites us to participate in the creative, redemptive work that God is doing in the world. God sees us as capable.

You are competent, God.Your works are good works.It amazes me that you see me as competent.Thank you for believing in me.Help me to trust your words of affirmation.Help me to find joy in doing good.Amen

This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.I John 3:19-20

Sometimes it is difficult to believe that we 'belong to the truth'. Sometimes it is difficult to imagine having our 'hearts at rest'. The part of our heart that is damaged by shame reminds us of all our inadequacies and failures. As this text puts it, our hearts condemn us.

In the process of recovery many of us become aware that we have internalized a voice of shame and self-condemnation. We may tell ourselves that we are unlovable. "How could anyone care about me?" Or, we may tell ourselves that we are worthless. "I'm no good." Or, we may tell ourselves that we are not capable. "I can't do anything right." These are some of the ways we condemn ourselves. We also may question our faith. We may wonder, as this verse puts it, whether "we belong to the truth". Because of our early experiences of rejection and our current self-condemnation, we find ourselves expecting God to condemn us. As a result we cannot rest in God's presence.

God is greater than our self-condemning hearts. God knows everything. And God does not condemn us.

I long to set my heart at rest, Lord.I long to rest in your presence.But, my heart is full of self-condemnation.The voices of shame are loud within me.

I am afraid that you will also condemn me, Lord.I am afraid that you will agree with the shame voices.

Speak to me today, Lord.Speak more loudly than the voices of shame.Be greater than my heart. Shame can only feed on the hidden things, Lord,but nothing is hid from you.Be more powerful than the shame, Lord.Let me find rest today in your love.Amen.

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.Psalm 103:13-14

We are not very understanding or tolerant of our limitations. We forget how we are 'formed'. Instead of accepting our creatureliness as a good gift from God, we often find ourselves being harshly judgmental and unforgiving of ourselves. This lack of compassion can lead to self-abusive and self-neglectful behaviors. When we forget how we are formed, we can forget to take care of such creaturely basics as sleep, decent food and relaxation.

Fortunately, God does not forget how we are formed. God remembers. God knows we have limitations. God remembers that we are 'dust'. Because we are so intolerant of our limits, it is important to emphasize that the metaphor 'dust' in this text does not imply worthless. It is not that God remembers how worthless we are - just dust to be sweep up and thrown away . Quite to the contrary, God remembers our weakness and limitations and has compassion on us. Again, because we are so intolerant of our limits, it is also probably important to emphasize that 'compassion' is not 'pity'. God does not pity us poor, pathetic, helpless mortals. Quite to the contrary, God's compassion is the tender, loving care of a good parent towards a child.

God knows and respects our limitations. They are not a surprise to God. God is our Creator. God remembers what we tend to forget. God remembers that we are creatures.

Thank you, Lord, for remembering what I forget.You remember that I am human,that I need to sleep,that I need to play,that I have limited strength and ability.Thank you for having reasonable expectations of me.Thank you for understanding my limits.Help me to be compassionate with my humannessEven as you, Lord,are compassionate toward me.Amen.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."Jeremiah 29:11

Hope is about the future. It may be oriented to the next hour, or the next day, or the next month or year or decade. But hope is always about anticipation.

Those of us who like to control things often find hope difficult because we do not control the future. Many of us are compulsive makers-of-plans. We are willing to work ourselves to death trying to make our plans become reality. But when our hopes and vision for the future are based only on what we can control, our vision is inevitably narrowed and impoverished.

We need to remind ourselves regularly, therefore, that God's vision for the future is better than our own. God sees possibilities and opportunities that we cannot see. The horizons of God's imagination are not bounded. When we root our hope in God, a totally different future is possible. It is not a future we can control. God's plans may not be the same as our plans. But we can return again and again to God as our source of hope.

God has been clear about our future. It is God's intention to give us a hope and a future. This is not a promise of a trouble-free life. It is not a promise of immunity from struggle. But it is a promise of hope. God has been with us in the past. God is with us in the present. And God will be with us in the future.

Thank you for paying attention to my future, Lord.Thank you for making plans.Help me today to rest in the thought thatyour plans for me include blessing.Open my heart today to the hope and the futureyou have prepared for me.Amen.

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.'Luke 15:4-5

It is easy for us to lose our way. We may start off with confidence. We think we know where we are and where we are headed. And, then, somewhere along the way in life we get lost. We find ourselves alone and we don't know where we are. We get confused and disoriented. We don't know how to find our way back, how to get 'on track' again.

Fortunately, God pays attention. God notices that we are lost. And, because of the great value God sees in us, God sets out to find us. God searches for us. God pursues us until we are found.

When God finds us, most of us expect God to say: 'Where have you been? I have been looking all over for you! Can't you follow directions? What's wrong with you? I don't want to have to come back out here again to find you. Try to pay attention from now on!'

But there is no hint of scolding, shaming, yelling or blaming in this text. When God finds us, God is full of joy. God picks us up and carries us home. God celebrates.

God pays attention. God notices when we are lost. God searches for us. And God celebrates when we are found. Recovery is the gift of being found by God.

I was lost, Lord.Alone..Disoriented. Confused. Afraid.You found me.I expected blame and rejection when you found me.I expected you to be full of rage.I expected you to see me as an inconvenience.But you greeted me with joy.With celebration!Thank you for finding me.Amen.

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power . . .to grasp . . . the love of Christ.Ephesians 3:17

We all have root systems. Roots are life-lines. They seek out and drink in water and nutrients. And they provide stability in times of wind and erosion.

Unfortunately, many of us are rooted in the soil of shame. Roots in this rocky soil become bound. They cannot sustain growth. They are not able to provide nourishment or stability.

Recovery for many of us is like being transplanted. It is the process of allowing God to first pull us out of the parched and rocky soil of shame and to then plant us in the soil of love. In the rich soil of love our fragile roots can finally begin to stretch, grow and take hold. It is a soil in which real nourishment and real stability are possible.

But transplantation is not a simple matter. No matter how gently God pulls us up out of the soil of shame, there will be trauma. And sinking roots in new soil will feel like an unfamiliar and risky adventure.

As our roots sink deeper and deeper in the soil of God's love, however, we will begin to experience growth that never could have been possible in the soil of rejection and shame. We will become 'rooted and established' in love.

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